What would you charge for an ad on your site?

[KasinoKing]

I approached a casino who does not have any affiliate system in place about marketing them.
(The appear very reputable)

The seem really interested, and keep asking my how much I would charge to host an advert for them on my site.
So this would be a fixed monthly fee - no CPA, no rev-share.

How much do you think would be a reasonable figure? *
Or would you not even consider a no commission deal?

* Bearing in mind there is a small chance that my site is not the most popular portal on the planet... :rolleyes:

Thoughts please!

[Simmo!]

Hmm tricky. There is inevitably the issue of "expectations" and whenever I've had these sorts of conversations it's always been apparent that me and the casino are some way apart :) There is no easy solution and to be honest, I think it's near impossible to get the balance right because at the end of the initial period, one of you is more likely to feel it didn't work.

If you think you'll deliver them say 5 players (depositing players), then they would probably expect to pay you $250-$500 for the ad. Conversely, if I was delivering 5 players, I'd want $1000. Trouble is, with no affiliate system in place, you'll never know, so you can only really base it on click-thrus which means you're in PPC territory. So I'd value a targetted click-thru at about $5-$10, but they probably won't. And of course there's the whole click-fraud thing.

I'd try saying something like: you pay me $1,000 and I'll run the ad until you've had 150 click-throughs (200 if you want). But if you do tha, make sure you send the clicks through a referral script to count them. I have one if you want one.

Cheers,

Simmo!

[sarafina]

That's a great question KasinoKing, and Simmo you are spot on with your response.

It all depends on what you feel you can deliver. For instance, if you quote based on what you think you can deliver as a minimum, you can set your price based on average player values and set expectations accordingly.

My advise is to sample the site and once you have a good feel for their conversion capabilities, player values and so on, you will be in a better position to charge accordingly.

I have also seen affiliates provide a guarantee of delivery for the spend, be it a guarantee in traffic or in players, which can also help to give the operator a good sense of the partnership.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Fina

[KasinoKing]

It all depends on what you feel you can deliver.

That's the tricky part!
I've had casinos on my site which I think are excellent but made no (or very few) conversions in 2 years. :eek: Yet other casinos which I would consider "second stream" have had masses of take-ups...

The obvious problem would be knowing exactly how many players had clicked my links & how many went on to deposit.

I do have some other thoughts on this, but will wait to see if anyone else will add their comments too.

Cheers!

[dominique]

It is also a matter of how much you trust the place.

I advertise a Bingo that has no aff program. We have an agreement where there is a base fee and if their revenues exceed that by a certain amount, I start getting "bonuses". This has worked well as far as I am concerned, the results are realistic for me given the spots they have.

Neither party wants to lose money. If that spot is worth a given amount to you, you don't want to give it to someone who will pay less.

Conversely, the casino wants to see the appropriate results also.

I like to work closely with places I sell spots to, and I will adjust the amount of exposure to meet goals.

But I am not a site that has exclusively media buys, so maybe Bryan could weigh in on this for us. If this is a direction you want to take more and more (and I am considering that) you need a decent flat fee system. What I do would be too time consuming if all my listings were media buys.

[Spearmaster]

Ultimately you're going to have to justify whatever fee you charge for advertising, in that the advertiser is going to want to see a net profit.

How you charge depends on many different factors - for example, where is your traffic coming from? What kind of product are you promoting? How prominent is the ad space you're selling? Are you selling front page only, or run of site, or particular sections of your site?

Got2Bet, in its heyday, was able to command $40 CPM - because it delivered players, pure and simple. Today most sites will struggle to command $5 CPM.

CPC is not a viable option - one side or the other is going to lose badly here. CPA is a better choice by far but you're going to need to agree on exactly what conditions constitute a valid CPA (such as minimum deposit).

If you really feel that you should go for a fixed fee - I would suggest taking the $5 CPM, multiplying that by 80% of your average traffic in thousands, and charging three months.

So, for example, let's say your traffic is 20K views per month - that would be 16 x $5 x 3 months - $250. Not a whole lot, but then 20K impressions per month isn't a lot either.

If you know your traffic is high-converting, you can maybe double the CPM to $10, so that would be $500.

As you can see, CPA is probably much better value - certainly you can earn a bare minimum of $100 CPA, though I'd suggest $200 CPA would be more reasonable, but on the condition that the minimum deposit within 2 months is $300, or something similar. However, a lot depends on the casino converting the traffic too - as KK mentioned, some casinos convert really well, others convert poorly.

Thus - what I am going to suggest is that you adopt a hybrid model - say $400 for the three months regardless of results - and $200 CPA with conditions for each player they convert beyond the first two. This way you guarantee you will get something - and the advertiser gets a reasonable deal. If they convert really well, you get a bonus for sending good traffic.

[dominique]

I would really bite myself if I did that. I guess it depends on average player value...

[bonustreak]

I'd try saying something like: you pay me $1,000 and I'll run the ad until you've had 150 click-throughs (200 if you want). But if you do tha, make sure you send the clicks through a referral script to count them. I have one if you want one.

I like this idea. Usually I just toss out an amount that I think they will go for and make it that simple :p I never really go with CPA deals.

[KasinoKing]

I like to keep things as simple as possible and I'm not greedy, so I went back to them & said I wanted $50/month for 6-months to place 2 banners & 1 text link on my site, paid for up-front. Nothing depending on click-throughs or sign-ups or any of that malarky...

...and they damn near bit my hand off! :eek:

I hope I'm not selling myself short, but I'm glad I didn't go with my first thought of $25/month...

I've just got to do some more investigations to make sure the casino is A-OK & it will be all systems go.

KK

[Spearmaster]

I like to keep things as simple as possible and I'm not greedy, so I went back to them & said I wanted $50/month for 6-months to place 2 banners & 1 text link on my site, paid for up-front. Nothing depending on click-throughs or sign-ups or any of that malarky...

...and they damn near bit my hand off! :eek:

I hope I'm not selling myself short, but I'm glad I didn't go with my first thought of $25/month...

I've just got to do some more investigations to make sure the casino is A-OK & it will be all systems go.

KK

Haha... serves you right for asking and then doing your own thing :) $50/month for 2 banners and a text link, I'd be swallowing you whole, not just biting your hand off... good thing for you I'm not a casino operator ;)

[KasinoKing]

Haha... serves you right for asking and then doing your own thing :) $50/month for 2 banners and a text link, I'd be swallowing you whole, not just biting your hand off... good thing for you I'm not a casino operator ;)
Yeah - but I still reckon I will probably get the most from this deal. Like I said, I've had some VERY well known casinos on my site for over 2 years with NO conversions at all...:eek:

It's a gamble I know, but if the cap fits... :rolleyes:

KK

[dominique]

Maybe your visitors are all established gamblers and as such are already enrolled in these casinos? Maybe you want to list some reputable newer ones?